Buddy's Marketing Forum

kjdama · Fri Jul 28, 2006 1:16 pm Any suggestions on a good free place to start?

I am really intersested in learning more about website building. I have been looking into building my own website as a portal to work-from-home business and resources, and of course promoting my own biz's. At this point I do not have a budget for purchasing my own domain and webhosting. Any suggestions on a good, free place to start?

No-Brainer · Guest

kjdama wrote: At this point I do not have a budget for purchasing my own domain and webhosting.

So if you are really that broke, why not get into a Paid To Read program and raise the 10 bucks it takes to get your own domain and a hosting service?

The rest is no big deal, you can download a free editor, snag a free template and get free advertising. But using a free host will be asking for grief if you want to run any kind of business on it.

First of all your credibility goes in the toilet, your bandwidth is throttled, your reputation is tarnished, is that enough reasons?

But if you insist and are willing to put up with the problems, try http://FreeWebs.com

Buddy · Guest

I have seen some really nice sites done at http://freewebs.com. They have some nice templates. Plus you may use some code, add images, if for no other reason- this would be a great practice site. You could see how you would like different sections to be. You could rewrite your paragraphs until they were just right. You could practice a few codes and work with images alittle. You could work out the bugs of how and in what order you would like to present your site. You would have alot of the basics figured out before you invested your money on a more permanent site.

kjdama · Guest

Thanks for your insight, no-brainer. I guess I'm really looking for that starting off point to work with until I can pay my own hosting. I am in a couple of PTR's right now, so that's a good suggestion. I'll try starting with Freewebs, and then go from there.

Can I transfer the site later on?

Buddy · Guest

I am not sure about being able to transfer. But, I did forget to mention that they also have a paypal setup section where you can receive payments and such with an online shopping cart. Which would come in handy :wink:

No-Brainer · Guest

kjdama wrote: Can I transfer the site later on?

If nothing else, when you finish it visit the site in your browser, click view source and save the file to your hard drive. Then right click each image and save it too.

The only problem is if you use their templates they may be copyright, but if you find a free template online and use it, then transferring it would be no problem.

Instead of using the site builder they offer, pick a template and use their file manager to upload the files. To use FTP I think it's an extra charge.

kjdama · Guest

Buddy wrote: I am not sure about being able to transfer. But, I did forget to mention that they also have a paypal setup section where you can receive payments and such with an online shopping cart. Which would come in handy :wink:

OO!! No I didn't know that, but it certainly will come in handy!!

streak_tlu · Guest

Kira,

I don't know if you have already chosen a free-based site but I've had great success with freeservers and for just $1 you can get all of the banners they put on your site off and it has a GREAT back office/file manager, etc that's very easy to use. Best of luck to you.

Streak

ebizgold · Guest

Hi Kira,

When I made my first website, mainly for practice, I used http://www.50webs.com/ I was pleasantly surprised at how well it turned out & seemed to grow and grow & then wondered why I'd put it on a free host.

Very easy to upload files & deal with. Don't place ads on your site like most free hosts. I think you can also use your own domain name.

I have been teaching myself html which has really helped. It gives you a better idea when looking at source codes.

Catch up with you round the WAHM Forums.

Gaida

Sherry-n-texas · Guest

I have a Freewebs acct and I have had problems with the site not being available sometimes.

I also have 2 sites with Zoomshare. I like them because you can password protect individual pages so that you can have people sign-up for a newsletter and then you can send them the password (if you don't have the software to do the work automatically & instantly)

With Zoomshare, you can't get a counter unless you upgrade. You can with Freewebs but you can't password protect your pages...It is a trade-off.

Decide what features you really need to have and then pick a site with the idea of upgrading as $$ permits.

For the best feature rich site...I think it would have to be Bravehost because you can join Bravenet and get alot of things for your site.

Just go check out everything.

Good luck!

Sherry

kjdama · Guest

I guess I should update everyone on what I've done. I started a site with Freewebs, but I was not satisfied with how it was coming along. Through an offer site I signed up for the Web.com offer and decided to go with that, even though it was not free. So I now have a site up and active!

I've noticed that lots of people have some great sites through freewebs. I just couldn't get it to work the way I had hoped it would.

Buddy · Guest

To bad about freewebs- but web.com is really good too. And thier prices are real reasonable. It is just great to see your site up and running :wink:

kjdama · Guest

For me web.com had a much easier design tool. For some reason freewebs was really complicated for me. I'm sure I could have asked for one of my friends to help design and implement the website, but I know they are much more busy than me. And besides, I hate asking for favors from my friends.

I'm happy my site is finally up too! :wink:

ebizgold · Guest

Hi Kira,

Great to see your site up & running.... I'm sure your friends would have helped. If I asked my friends they'd look at me thinking I was talking a foreign language. Catch up with you over at WAHM forums.

Cade - my brain is also always on overdrive.. I have been teaching myself html (it fascinates me) usually make websites in frontpage... looked at dreamweaver & think ...Oh my! & that's as far as that's gone. If you know of any great tutorials.. please let me know. For FTP I use coffeecup & it's soooo easy.

It's great to ask & share information on the forums. Always something new to learn.

Gaida

camo · Guest

Well i though about using a freeweb host but opted not to because i wasnt to sure what kind of content i was going to add so i wanted to have the space if i needed it but i found a great Cheap web host called Evohosting and also got a free web designer from Serif. The web host i chose are very good and offer alot of support if you ever need it. The web designer is a bit limited to what you can do as it does all the HTML for you but unfortunatly you cant enter your own so it dous'nt help if your trying to learn HTML :) They do give you a fair amount of templates to start of but i opted for starting from scratch.
I have managed to get a copy of Dreamweaver 8 so i am currently trying to remaster my site with it but i think it will take some time as the manual for Dreamweaver is HUGE :shock:
I also use Smart FTP Client for my FTP transfers and although a bit complicated to start once you get to grips with it its as simple as buttering your toast in the morning.

Sorry about the spelling its first thing in the morning and im trying to write this and get the kids their breakfast so please excuse it as i cant be bothered checking it over lol